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The European Parliament could block Boris Johnson's Brexit deal over the UK's treatment of EU citizens, its Brexit coordinator said this morning. Guy Verhofstadt called for the "remaining problems" with citizens' rights to be solved before consent could be given by the parliament, which is yet to vote on the deal. MEPs are worried that problems with the UK's settlement scheme for EU nationals could leave some citizens with no immigration status.

He said: "Everyone presumes the European Parliament will give automatically its consent to the Withdrawal Agreement. Not if the remaining problems with the citizens' rights are not solved first.

"Citizens can never become the victims of Brexit."

Mr Verhofstadt's speech comes almost a week after Mr Johnson won a thumping majority in the general election a result which undeniably gives him a "stonking mandate" to deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum.

Unlike the former Belgium Prime Minister, who strongly campaigned for the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign, the majority of EU leaders welcomed Mr Johnson's win.

Mr Verhofstadt's opposition, though, should not come as a surprise, as he was reportedly not too pleased when Theresa May called for a general election in 2017, either.

In 2019 book 'Blind Man's Brexit', documentary maker Lode Desmet and BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton provide the first in-depth fly-on-the-wall view of "how the negotiations slipped out of Britains hands" and recall how the European Parliament's Brexit Coordinator reacted to Theresa May's call for a 2017 general election.

The authors wrote: "Verhofstadt was scathing about Mrs Mays decision to call for a snap election.

"In an opinion piece in The Guardian, he wrote or rather co-wrote with his British spokesperson Nick Petre As a Belgian, I have a long standing appreciation of surrealism.

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"Having informed European leaders that Britain is leaving the European Union, and, after laying out the UKs negotiating position in a detailed notification letter, the Prime Minister is now asking the British people how they would like their full English Brexit served.

"In Brussels, we now wonder who will be joining us at the breakfast table after all.'"

Mr Desmet and Mr Stourton added that Mr Verhostadt had voiced the fear, widely shared within the EU, that the former Prime Minister was giving party management priority over national interest.

They quoted Mr Verhofstadt as saying in his Guardian piece: "With the referendum, which many European leaders saw as a Tory cat fight that got out of control, I have little doubt many on the continent see this election as again motivated by the internal machinations of the Tory party.

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EU contempt laid bare: Verhofstadt's 'scathing' reaction to general election revealed - Express